


Lustrous Duet

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, prompt list
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-22 12:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12481908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: Let's play the melody of our hearts again, shall we~?[series of oneshots based off of random one word prompts]





	1. Impression

Kotsu Masumi only sees what she expects to see.

She holds a diamond in her hands and notes the shimmer of its cut and the glimmer of its edges.  She inspects an emerald in a case and critiques the expert cut.  She dangles sapphires from her fingers and marvels at the depth of its shade.  Diamonds are supposed to shine.  Emeralds are supposed to glimmer.  Sapphires are supposed to gleam.

Perfect jewels are supposed to shine.

People should be no different, right?

But no person she has ever met has the same shine as a gem stone.  No set of eyes she had passed on the street has the same cut, the same edge, the same gleam—they lack something.  A luster.

She has come close to finding eyes with the luster she seeks.  The glimmer of passion, or the sheen of determination.  But it's not the same.  It will never be the same.

Kotsu Masumi only sees what she expects to see.

And she does not expect to see luster in humanity.

After all, why should she?  When she comes home from school to hear her father screaming at her mother about the shop, about the man next door, about the weather, about anything.  When she tries to slip past the living room where her mother is punching holes into the wall with a diamond chisel and finds herself the next target of the screams.  When she tries to stare straight ahead in the hallway and pretend that she does not hear the old friend whispering insulting words about her.  When she walks down the street and finds herself frustrated by the eyes cast at the concrete instead of at the world, the downcast look in every workingman's eyes and wondering if that is what she is going to become too.

Why should she expect anything from humanity?

Why should she expect anything from this girl with the downcast, faraway eyes hidden behind rhodonite bangs?

She is lusterless.  Like the others.  Like everyone and everything in this goddamn world.

Gems are simpler.  They are easy to understand.

~

Hiragi Yuzu listens for what she does not expect.

She twists a melody in her mind, following the tune to its ends, chasing the notes to the bottom of the scale.  She pulls an aria from the tones of her friend's voices, weaving thoughts and context and inside jokes into the melody of her life.

Life is full of music, isn't it?  

She tries to believe so.

It is hard, some days.  The days when she comes home and no one is there because her father is busy trying to make ends meet.  The days when she sits in her living room and dares to wonder why no picture frame carries even a hint of her mother's face.  The days when she twists the bracelet around her wrist and wonders idly if there is a point to her existence.

Some days, her song is so twisted and faraway that she cannot find the beginning or end.  Some days, the repetitive canon is thrown off balance, and she cannot hear the tune of life anymore.

Perhaps that's why the girl with the voice like a requiem said she had no luster.  Songs should shine, shouldn't they?  But Yuzu's song could not shine that day.

But, in hindsight...

The girl with the requiem voice and the sonata in her walk did not seem to want to shine either.  Perhaps Yuzu was simply not listening hard enough, her own melody twisted up in faraway memories of uncertainty and doubt that she did not want to hear.

Hiragi Yuzu tries to listen to everything.

Songs make the world easier to understand.

But did she really hear her, the girl with the elegy in her proud stance, the first time they met?

Perhaps she didn't.

Perhaps she needs to listen harder the next time they meet...


	2. Beautiful

She remembers the exact moment she realized that Hiragi Yuzu was beautiful.

It was in the flurry of light refracting off of gemstones and melding into melody, the rippling of sound waves as the flowering singer reflected her own strength right back at her, when the girl with rhodanite hair stood illuminated by the light of a million songs.  Her hair whipping back and forth in the breeze, standing tall and strong against the facets of light, her eyes the color of brilliant sapphires, and _shining_.

And in that moment Kotsu Masumi had had one, singular thought.

Hiragi Yuzu is _radiant_.

It all happened in such a rush.  One moment, she was staring at the girl's radiance, the next, she was plummeting through the air—and then, dropping gently into arms made of arias and looking up into a smile made of sonatas.

And those eyes, still shining down at her, a smile beaming from her face, as brilliant as a diamond itself _._

And the only thing Masumi could think was _why didn't I see her before?_


	3. Mock

“Oh my god.  Are you still wearing them?”

Yuzu grinned at her and stuck out her tongue, touching her finger to the fake gems around her neck.

“They’re pretty.  And they match the dress.”

Masumi felt like she was going to die from embarrassment.  Yuzu looked stunning, of course.  She always did.  Even without her natural radiance, the dress she had selected fit her frame perfectly: it was a deep, beautiful amethyst in color, tighter around the hips before flaring out in a ruffled, mermaid tail style.  Tiny white beads decorated the bodice and the gauzy sleeves wrapped just around her shoulders, leaving her collarbone bare.  Well, bare, except for the ugliest fake party-store gems ever created hanging around her neck.  They _were_ the same color as the dress, Masumi reluctantly agreed, but they lacked the luster of real gems, and the fake pearls in between each circular fake gem were just insult to injury.

Masumi reached up to smooth some of Yuzu’s updo that had come undone, fixing the flower hair piece she was wearing.

“I could have lent you gems from the shop,” she said.  “Or given you some.”

“You _did_ give me these,” Yuzu said.

“They were a joke, Yuzu, I got them out of a gumball machine.”

“I know, I was there with you,” Yuzu said, laughing. “You’re so picky.”

Masumi flushed, and Yuzu just reached across to fix Masumi’s dress straps, pulling them back onto her shoulders.

“I just don’t like mock gems,” she said.  “You deserve better.”

Yuzu smiled that dazzling smile again, and she leaned in to kiss Masumi on the nose.

“I already have the best,” she said, tucking her arm around Masumi’s.

Masumi didn’t have an answer to that, so she decided to close her mouth before she babbled something incoherent.

Maybe the mock gems were fine.  As long as the person who wore them was lustrous, after all...


	4. Smile

Oh god, it’s so cold.  He can’t breathe.  

He trudges forward, one foot at a time, punching through the snow with each step.  Each step is harder than the last, dragging his leg out of the foot of snow and punching it back in again.  His pants are soaked through, though he doesn’t feel the cold in his legs.  Not anymore.  It seems to have become a part of him.

He can still hear them on either side of him: the wolves.  They haven’t done anything yet, but he knows the way that fairy tales work.  He knows that the wolves should never be trusted.  He cannot stop, or they might take him.  He cannot turn, either, force to go straight as the wolves are on either side of him, moving silent and white among the snow.  They are leading him somewhere, he is sure.  He just doesn’t know where.

The house is such a shock among the white and the black of the trees.  It is the wrong shape for the forest, and for a moment, he can only stare at it, stare at the glowing windows and the smoke coming from the chimney, and he breathes with shock and barely concealed hope.  He is not alone in the woods.

He doesn’t make it to the door before he collapses, face first into the snow.  The sound of his crunching fall seems to have caught attention of the house, though, as he sees the light pour out from the opening door and hears the gasp before he passes out.

He wakes up to warmth, and it is so strange and dizzying that he feels like throwing up for a moment.  His entire body retches and twists with convulsions.  He feels warm hands light on his shoulders, a cool voice whispering that it’s okay, he’s all right.

He comes fully awake, and he sees the deep blue eyes over his head.  She smiles.

“You’re all right,” she says again.  “You’re okay.  You’re warm and you’re inside.”

He gasps, but his throat is so dry that he cannot speak.  She pats him on the shoulder and briefly disappears.

When she returns, there is a warm, slightly steaming mug in her hands.

“Can you sit up?”

With her help, he manages.  She tips the mug against his lips and helps him drink--it is not too warm to burn him, but warm enough to make him nearly cry from it.  He almost feels like a person again.

“Better?” she asks, her pigtails swinging from her movement leaning back.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

She smiles again.

“We don’t get a lot of visitors this far into the woods,” she said.  “What’s your name?”

The cold has almost completely stripped him of his own identity, but in the warmth, he begins to remember again.

“I’m Yuya,” he says.  “And you?”

“Yuzu.”

She puts the mug back on the counter, and picks up a second.  She blows on it briefly before drinking herself.  He notes that there is a third mug on the counter, but it is untouched.  He takes a peek around the room, but sees no one immediately.  It is a small little one room cabin.  Just a small bed, big enough for two people, a small table with two chairs, a counter by the oven, and one, cushy chair in front of the fireplace.  The fire is bright and hot, and he closes his eyes against it.  He supposes there might be another person in that chair, as it is facing away from him, but they haven’t said anything yet.

“What is it you want from the woods?” Yuzu asks, and he opens his eyes again.

He looks down at his knees.  He’s told many people already what his quest is, and they have all told him the same thing: go home.  He doesn’t know that he can hear someone say it again.

“I’ve lost someone important to me,” he said.  “Or rather, I’ve lost his smile.  I’m going to get it back.”

She blows lightly on her tea and hums.

“Let me guess: the white witch stole it.”

Yuya nods.  He clenches his hands into fists and goes quiet, waiting for her to tell her it’s impossible.  What the white witch steals, the white witch keeps.  He might not even reach the end of the woods and find the witch’s castle, as the woods do not give up their secrets lightly and he could be searching for years.  And even if he reaches her, either he’ll have to give up what’s most important to him to get back the lost smile, or the witch will simply laugh and steal him away, locking him in one of her snow globes with the rest of her stolen treasures.

She puts her mug back on the table and Yuya comes back to himself.

“The white witch stole something from me, too,” she says.  “The smile of my precious person.  She has it too.”

There is a harshness in her voice, a rumble in her throat, like a thunderstorm ready to break with hot summer rain and crackling summer lightning.  His lips part with surprise.  That is not the voice of someone who has given up.

He looks back to the armchair facing away from him, and thinks of the person he’s left behind, sitting dull and lifeless at home without responding to anything.

Sure enough, Yuzu takes the third mug, and walks around the armchair.  She leans down in front of it, her eyes lightening and face softening as she tries to pass the mug down.  She’s standing there for ages, and finally, Yuya stands up, and walks around the other side of the armchair.

The girl looks small, or perhaps, it’s just because something has been taken out of her.  She is dark skinned and dark haired; her hair appearing to have just been brushed to a silky smoothness.  But her eyes are dull and lifeless; there is no shine to her ruby irises as they stare aimlessly into the fire.

“Her smile was stolen,” Yuya says.

Yuzu’s hand shakes slightly where she still holds the mug, the mug that the girl does not take.

“What is her name?” Yuya asks, gently.

Yuzu swallows.  She leans back and hugs the mug against her chest.

“Tell me the name of yours, too.  I’ll tell you hers.”

No one has ever asked about him, the one whose smile was lost.  They’ve only heard the first part and told him to give up and go home.

“Reiji,” Yuya says.

“Masumi,” says Yuzu.

They stand there for a moment, both of them lit by the fire’s light, on either side of the girl without a smile.  She reminds Yuya so much of the one he left behind, promising his unhearing ears that he would return with his stolen smile retrieved.  He doesn’t know how long it’s been since then.  It could  have been years.

He looks up at Yuzu, and she looks down at him.  Her eyes are full of frustrated tears.

“I just want her back,” she whispers.

He stands up, and reaches out to take her hand, squeezing it.  He understands.  And he almost wants to cry to know that there is someone else who understands.

“Let’s get them back,” he says.  “Let’s both get their smiles back, together.”

“It might be impossible,” Yuzu says, sniffling, but her eyes remain on his.

“It’s impossible to live like this,” he says.

She nods immediately.  Because she understands.  She puts the mug back on the table, and she alights on her knees in front of Masumi, putting her hands on top of hers.  For a moment, she looks at Masumi, who does not look back.  She leans up and kisses her, gently, lovingly.

“I’ll be back,” she says.  “Before morning.”

She rubs her teary eyes on the back of her arm.

“I have coats.  And winter things.  You can borrow Masumi’s.  I know where the witch’s castle is.”

Yuya starts with surprise.

“You do?” he says.

She smiles, and it is a fierce, warm thing that threatens to melt the entire world around them and turn the winter into summer.

“Of course,” she says, walking towards her coat.  “You follow the wolves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a weird one, but at the time of writing this I had recently finished a book called Breadcrumbs, which was a fascinating subversion of fairy-tale tropes, and the world of the Woods really spoke to me. i wanted to do something very vaguely based on it, or at least carrying the same atmosphere and mood. Who knows what the end of Yuzu and Yuya's adventure is gonna be, but knowing them, they'll find their loved ones' smiles no problem :)


End file.
